The action targets the company's plan to reverse the flow of its Line 9 pipeline from North Westover, Ont., to Montreal, allowing the eastward flow of crude from the Alberta tar sands and U.S. Bakken shale.

According to reporting by the Montreal Gazette, three protesters locked themselves to the refinery's gates, while a fourth scaled a tripod. The small citizen group was ultimately arrested and charged with mischief.

Explaining why they took the direct action, Alyssa Symons-Bélanger, one of the four activists at the scene, said in a press statement: "We want to send a clear message to the oil companies and to the Harper and Couillard governments: the residents of Quebec are opposed to the transportation of the tar sands and are calling for an immediate halt to their extraction."

Canada's National Energy Board gave approval to the reversal in March this year, prompting rebuke from environmental groups in Canada and the U.S.

Supporters of the action took to Twitter to mark the action as it unfolded:

Further

Chanting "Kill the Bill, Not Us," over a hundred activists, many in wheelchairs, halted the only hearing on the Graham-Cassidy anti-health-care bill and were met with a response only the current cretins in power could conjure up: They were removed and arrested by police, Chairman Orrin Hatch told them to "shut up," and Bill Cassidy literally yawned through the turmoil. Democrat Ron Wyden called the spectacle "an abomination,” which aptly sums up the state of the Republic.